


Kinda Sorta Maybe (But Not Really)

by tamerofdarkstars



Category: NCIS
Genre: Awkward Flirting, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, McGee is So Done, Missing Scene, POV Outsider, Team Feels, Team as Family, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 13:26:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9326753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamerofdarkstars/pseuds/tamerofdarkstars
Summary: McGee's a good person. He doesn't deserve this.Tony and Ziva, as usual, don't take that into account during their daily flirtatious banter.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to get back into writing. Plus, I've been watching a lot of NCIS recently.

Some days, McGee finds himself on WebMD totally not-seriously looking up ways to safely gouge out his own eyes because, let’s be honest, there’s only so much a guy can take of watching his teammates moon over each other at once.

Seriously. It’s getting ridiculous.

Tony is leaning back in his desk, eyes not anywhere near the trace running dutifully on his computer. There’s a smile playing on his lips and a crease at the corner of his eye that tells McGee that it’s a genuine smile. He knows Tony’s fake smiles, knows them like the back of his hand, and this isn’t one of them.

Sure enough, when he chances a glance across the aisle, Ziva is not looking at either of them, but is instead frowning down at a file folder, lips moving barely as she reads.

The look on Tony’s face is one of soft affection and McGee fingers his phone again, wondering for the thousandth time if he could get away with sneaking a picture.

Nah. Gibbs would catch him if Tony didn’t, and McGee may be sick of the childish flirting and hair-pulling and the obvious heavy love that has grown between his two best friends, but there’s no way he’s going to out their all-out annihilation of Rule 12 to Gibbs.

Well, ok, technically they’re not breaking Rule 12.

 _Yet_.

They might never break Rule 12, actually. Not if they keep moving at such a glacial pace.

Ziva has looked up from her file folder now and Tony’s head snaps to his computer screen so fast that McGee’s neck twinges in sympathy pain.

And now it’s their adopted assassin who’s staring fixedly at something that’s not her computer screen. She’s far more difficult for McGee to read than Tony is. He chalks half of that up to knowing Tony for a decade and the other half up to Ziva being a highly-trained literal ninja who could smile benignly at him while simultaneously severing his carotid artery with a paper clip.

McGee shivers, cracking his neck, and tears his eyes away from where Ziva is studying Tony like he’s some kind of strange alien lifeform that she’s never encountered before. It’s the same look she gives them when they correct an idiom that she’s sure she’d gotten right.

The same look she gives them when they try, in their stumbling sort of way, to express to her how much she _belongs_.

A look of confused focus, a look that says she’s never encountered this situation or this feeling before, but it’s going to be dissected and absorbed right here on the spot until she understands it.

McGee likes that look.

He _knows_ Tony likes that look.

But, you know, in a bit of a different way.

“What?”

Tony’s voice isn’t sharp, but it is a bit blustery, a bit too devil-may-care, and McGee glances back up just in time to see Ziva’s barely-there eye-widening at having been caught staring before her face relaxes into a casual smirk.

It’s as well-practiced as that grin Tony does, the one that’s always accompanied by a little head jerk and a shoulder-roll.

McGee sighs, barely audible to even himself, and steels himself for the inevitable snark-fest that’s about to unfold.

“Just wondering if you are ever going to get around to finishing that scan.”

“I don’t run the computer, Zi- _va_. I’ll have you know I’m working very hard over here. As is my computer.”

“Oh really? Because to me, it seems as though you are merely sitting there and letting McGee and I carry on with the process of laying out this case!”

“Oh, no, don’t drag me into this…” McGee mumbles to himself, deleting a couple of spam email and opening up one that promises him five dollars off his next trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

“What’s wrong, McGoo?”

Oh no. Any feelings of good will are quickly evaporating because McGee also knows that voice of Tony’s, and that’s the oh-no-feelings-overload-quick-tease-mcgee-as-a-distraction voice.

“Nothing, Tony, go back to your flirting.”

There’s a strange silence and McGee realizes a second too late what he’s said. He closes his eyes and counts to five before chancing a glance up at Tony.

Tony, who has a weird look on his face. “Flirting? This is not flirting, McIncorrect. This is— uh, this is—”

“Banter,” Ziva finishes, folding her arms over her chest and pursing her lips. “Arguing.”

“Between friends, McGee. Friends. Partners. _Work_ partners. We do the same thing.”

McGee nearly chokes on his air because they do _not_ nor will they _ever_. “In that case, I will have to politely turn you down Tony, because I have zero desire to sleep with you.”

There’s a strange high-pitched sound from behind him and when McGee glances over his shoulder, the intern scuttles away, clutching a cup of coffee to her chest.

Great. McGee’s spent _years_ trying to squash that particular rumor.

“McGee, are you suggesting that Tony and I—”

“Oh my _god_ ,” McGee groans, slamming his fingers on his keyboard. The keyboard dutifully spits out a jumble of letters onto the email he’d been writing. “I am not having this conversation with you two. Go be stupidly in love somewhere else.”

Ziva and Tony are frozen in almost-hilarious wax models of their usual selves. Ziva has her arms half crossed, her lips parted in surprise and Tony’s face is a mask of frozen wide-eyed half-panic.

“Not funny, McGee,” Tony finally gets out and Ziva picks up a pen, twirling it between her fingers.

“I do not think you are cut out for jokes, McGee. Maybe you should leave that to Tony.”

“Aha!” Tony whirls on her, pointing a finger dramatically and neatly redirecting the conversation to safer waters. “So you admit I’m funny.”

“You are not funny.”

“I’m _hilarious_.”

“I have heard funnier death threats while in the middle of gunfights.”

“That’s just unnecessary, David. I expect an apology.”

“I will not apologize for speaking the truth.”

McGee groans softly and lets his head drop onto the desk, sending another smattering of letters skittering across his email. How was this his life? How?

“I think we’ve broken McGee, Tony.”

“He’s just jealous because he doesn’t get to sleep with me.”

Footsteps clicked clicked clicked around the corner and McGee feels the prickle shoot down the back of his neck a split second before Gibbs’ dry voice breaks into the conversation.

“Who’s sleeping with who, DiNozzo?”

McGee jerks up from the keyboard just in time to see Tony snap to attention and Ziva stiffen as Gibbs comes striding into the bullpen.

“No one, Boss!” Tony says quickly, and McGee stares at his email like it’s the most interesting thing in the universe.

“Why?” Gibbs asks mildly, moving to sit behind his desk and rolling up towards his computer. “You and McGee have a falling out?”

McGee chokes out a startled cough and Ziva laughs, the noise sounding like it was surprised out of her. She quickly cuts off the sound and McGee groans, pressing his hands into his eyes and kneading hard.

“Uh, Rule 12?” Tony sounds perplexed and when McGee opens his eyes again, it’s to see a smirk flashing across Gibbs’ face.

That’s it. He has to leave the country. After he gathers the team surreptitiously and tells them that clearly Gibbs has been captured by aliens and replaced with a pod person who only looks like Gibbs. He’ll do that, then move away and change his name and live out the rest of his days in total anonymity.

Tony’s computer beeps and Gibbs raises an eyebrow. That’s all the hinting they need and McGee scrambles out from behind his desk to line up with Tony and Ziva as Tony scrambles for the monitor remote.

He catches, out of the corner of his eye, Ziva and Tony exchanging a quick furtive look and when Tony finally locates the remote and clicks the monitor over to his computer screen, he feels Ziva brushing up close on his left. Moments later, Tony is brushing close on his right.

They stand, a three-man line shoulder to shoulder in front of the monitor and Tony starts it up, clicking through three pictures of US Navy Petty Officers with similar facial symmetry and rattling off their personal details. Ziva picks up the narrative from him as smooth as glass and McGee feels warmth stir in his chest.

Alright, so maybe he won’t have to move away and change his name. The rumors would dissipate. In a couple of years, sure but they would eventually dissipate. And hey, maybe one of these days, Tony and Ziva will actually get their acts together.

He’d like to be around to see that.

“McGee!”

McGee starts, blinking, and looks around behind him. The team is holding their backpacks and jackets, standing at the elevator. Gibbs is waving him over and shit, had he really just been daydreaming about _friendship_?

“Coming, boss!” McGee scrambles for his desk and hears Tony’s laugh from across the room.

“Daydreaming about me, McRomeo?”

Or maybe he’ll just kill Tony. That would also work.

“I keep telling you, McGee, I’m out of your league! Try Palmer!”

Definitely. Tony isn’t living to see tomorrow. He can get away with it. Probably.

McGee grabs his stuff and jogs to the elevator, jumping inside just as the doors ding shut. Tony is still snickering and even Ziva has a smile crooking the corner of her mouth.

“Sorry, boss,” McGee mutters, ignoring them both.

“With friends like these, right, McGee?” Gibbs murmurs behind him and McGee sighs.

“You have no idea, boss.”


End file.
